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PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface
may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface
may not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
tail — copy the last part of a file
SYNOPSIS
tail [−f] [−c number|−n number] [file]
DESCRIPTION
The tail utility shall copy its input file to the standard output beginning at a designated place.
Copying shall begin at the point in the file indicated by the −c number or −n number options. The option-
argument number shall be counted in units of lines or bytes, according to the options −n and −c. Both
line and byte counts start from 1.
Tails relative to the end of the file may be saved in an internal buffer, and thus may be limited in
length. Such a buffer, if any, shall be no smaller than {LINE_MAX}*10 bytes.
OPTIONS
The tail utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 12.2, Utility
Syntax Guidelines, except that '+' may be recognized as an option delimiter as well as '−'.
The following options shall be supported:
−c number The application shall ensure that the number option-argument is a decimal integer, optionally
including a sign. The sign shall affect the location in the file, measured in bytes, to begin
the copying:
┌─────┬────────────────────────────────────────┐
│Sign │ Copying Starts │
├─────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ + │ Relative to the beginning of the file. │
│ − │ Relative to the end of the file. │
│none │ Relative to the end of the file. │
└─────┴────────────────────────────────────────┘
The application shall ensure that if the sign of the number option-argument is '+', the number
option-argument is a non-zero decimal integer.
The origin for counting shall be 1; that is, −c +1 represents the first byte of the file, −c −1
the last.
−f If the input file is a regular file or if the file operand specifies a FIFO, do not terminate
after the last line of the input file has been copied, but read and copy further bytes from the
input file when they become available. If no file operand is specified and standard input is a
pipe or FIFO, the −f option shall be ignored. If the input file is not a FIFO, pipe, or regular
file, it is unspecified whether or not the −f option shall be ignored.
−n number This option shall be equivalent to −c number, except the starting location in the file shall be
measured in lines instead of bytes. The origin for counting shall be 1; that is, −n +1
represents the first line of the file, −n −1 the last.
If neither −c nor −n is specified, −n 10 shall be assumed.
OPERANDS
The following operand shall be supported:
file A pathname of an input file. If no file operand is specified, the standard input shall be used.
STDIN
The standard input shall be used if no file operand is specified, and shall be used if the file operand
is '−' and the implementation treats the '−' as meaning standard input. Otherwise, the standard input
shall not be used. See the INPUT FILES section.
INPUT FILES
If the −c option is specified, the input file can contain arbitrary data; otherwise, the input file shall
be a text file.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of tail:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See the
Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables for the
precedence of internationalization variables used to determine the values of locale
categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization
variables.
LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters
(for example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input files).
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic
messages written to standard error.
NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES.
ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
Default.
STDOUT
The designated portion of the input file shall be written to standard output.
STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
OUTPUT FILES
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
None.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
Default.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
The −c option should be used with caution when the input is a text file containing multi-byte characters;
it may produce output that does not start on a character boundary.
Although the input file to tail can be any type, the results might not be what would be expected on some
character special device files or on file types not described by the System Interfaces volume of
POSIX.1‐2008. Since this volume of POSIX.1‐2008 does not specify the block size used when doing input,
tail need not read all of the data from devices that only perform block transfers.
EXAMPLES
The −f option can be used to monitor the growth of a file that is being written by some other process.
For example, the command:
tail −f fred
prints the last ten lines of the file fred, followed by any lines that are appended to fred between the
time tail is initiated and killed. As another example, the command:
tail −f −c 15 fred
prints the last 15 bytes of the file fred, followed by any bytes that are appended to fred between the
time tail is initiated and killed.
RATIONALE
This version of tail was created to allow conformance to the Utility Syntax Guidelines. The historical −b
option was omitted because of the general non-portability of block-sized units of text. The −c option
historically meant ``characters'', but this volume of POSIX.1‐2008 indicates that it means ``bytes''.
This was selected to allow reasonable implementations when multi-byte characters are possible; it was not
named −b to avoid confusion with the historical −b.
The origin of counting both lines and bytes is 1, matching all widespread historical implementations.
Hence tail −n +0 is not conforming usage because it attempts to output line zero; but note that tail −n 0
does conform, and outputs nothing.
Earlier versions of this standard allowed the following forms in the SYNOPSIS:
tail −[number][b|c|l][f] [file]
tail +[number][b|c|l][f] [file]
These forms are no longer specified by POSIX.1‐2008, but may be present in some implementations.
The restriction on the internal buffer is a compromise between the historical System V implementation of
4096 bytes and the BSD 32768 bytes.
The −f option has been implemented as a loop that sleeps for 1 second and copies any bytes that are
available. This is sufficient, but if more efficient methods of determining when new data are available
are developed, implementations are encouraged to use them.
Historical documentation indicates that tail ignores the −f option if the input file is a pipe (pipe and
FIFO on systems that support FIFOs). On BSD-based systems, this has been true; on System V-based systems,
this was true when input was taken from standard input, but it did not ignore the −f flag if a FIFO was
named as the file operand. Since the −f option is not useful on pipes and all historical implementations
ignore −f if no file operand is specified and standard input is a pipe, this volume of POSIX.1‐2008
requires this behavior. However, since the −f option is useful on a FIFO, this volume of POSIX.1‐2008
also requires that if a FIFO is named, the −f option shall not be ignored. Earlier versions of this
standard did not state any requirement for the case where no file operand is specified and standard input
is a FIFO. The standard has been updated to reflect current practice which is to treat this case the same
as a pipe on standard input. Although historical behavior does not ignore the −f option for other file
types, this is unspecified so that implementations are allowed to ignore the −f option if it is known
that the file cannot be extended.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
head
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 8, Environment Variables, Section 12.2, Utility
Syntax Guidelines
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition,
Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc
and The Open Group. (This is POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the event
of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original
IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
http://www.unix.org/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced
during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .